August is when Nepal’s paddy fields are at their most vibrant. After months of planting, weeding and caring for their crops, this season calls for farmers to grow hopeful of the harvest. Farmers in Rasuwa, Nuwakot, and Dhading were no different. They had worked through the monsoon, waiting for paddy to ripen.

Then came the flood on August 26. In places where the water arrived suddenly, there was little to no time to respond. A farmer can watch the sky, watch the river, and prepare for heavy rain. But when floods come down pouring, without any warning, there is nothing she can do about it.

And this is not the first time; Rasuwa experienced a similar devastating flood last year, with farmland and livelihoods affected. Yet, families living along these rivers faced the same risk at a devastating scale this year.

For a smallholder farmer, losing a harvest is much more than losing a crop. It can mean losing the food stored for the year, livestock that represented years of savings, and seed that was meant for the next planting season. And if the flood has also taken away the farmland itself, there may be nothing to return to when the water recedes.

This is where the story of the smallholder farmer becomes a story about all of us.

Nepal has around 2.7 million smallholder farms, which account for about 70 percent of the country’s food production, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation. These farmers are among the country’s most important contributors to our food supply, yet they are often among the least visible.

Just imagine what would happen if smallholder farmers stopped producing food. Where would our food come from? And when a farmer no longer has a field to farm, who will produce the food?

The flood has, therefore, taken more than a farmer’s income. It has also taken away part of our food security.

The situation on the ground is already deeply worrying. For instance, in Uttargaya Rural Municipality, families are still searching for their loved ones. The flood didn’t take just lives; it swept away more than 2,500 livestock, which were years of savings and security for these farming families. In Kispang Rural Municipality, road connectivity has been severely disrupted after major routes were washed away. Around 120 people, including children, are currently staying in a temporary shelter. People need food, shelter and safety now. But they are only the immediate response. The bigger question is what happens after the relief teams leave.

For those of us working in agriculture and the development sector, this is where we need to think beyond disaster response. How do we make sure farmers are not left on their own when their crops, livestock or homes are destroyed? How do we help them work together, negotiate better prices, access financial services and insurance, and have a stronger voice in the decisions that affect their lives? Resilience is not something we can build after the flood. We have to build it before the water rises.

Farmers need organisations they can rely on when things go wrong. They need loans they can actually afford, insurance that pays when crops and livestock are lost, somewhere reliable to sell what they produce, and timely information about weather and markets. They need early-warning systems that reach their villages before the flood does.

And when disaster strikes, they need help replacing the livestock, seed and other productive assets that allow them to start again, not just food and blankets to get through the first few days.

This also means giving farmers a stronger collective voice. Cooperatives can help them negotiate better prices and access services together. Financial institutions need products that recognise the realities of smallholder farmers. Government policies need to recognise that losing a small plot of land can be just as devastating to a family as losing a much larger asset. Farmers should be seen as the ones who help feed the country, not simply as beneficiaries waiting for a development programme to arrive.

If we get this right, smallholder families can recover faster when the next shock comes. They’ll earn a more secure living from farming and continue producing the food that Nepal depends on. Because if a farmer loses everything and cannot rebuild, the consequences go beyond that one household.

For many families, the flood leaves them with no choice but to leave. Out-migration is already a major challenge for Nepal. If more farming households abandon their land because they can no longer make a living from it, rural communities will become weaker, agricultural production will decline, and Nepal could become even more dependent on food imports.

That leaves us more exposed to international price shocks. It also makes us more vulnerable when the next climate-related disaster comes. This is the part of the disaster story that may not make the headlines.

The dramatic images of bridges collapsing and villages disappearing will remain in our minds. The cost of rebuilding roads and infrastructure will be calculated. Governments will announce relief and reconstruction packages. But what about the farmer whose paddy field has disappeared? What about the livestock that was the family’s only significant asset? What about the seed they had kept for the next season? And what about the family that no longer has land to return to?

These questions matter because the smallholder farmers affected by this disaster are the same people who help put food on our tables every day. They deserve more than our sympathy after a disaster. They deserve recognition and respect. They deserve secure land rights, appropriate resettlement support where land has been lost, access to finance and insurance designed for small farms, strong farmer cooperatives and policies that recognise the realities of smallholder agriculture. We must invest in farmers before disaster strikes, not only help them after everything is gone.

None of this is meant to undermine the search and rescue efforts that are underway. Saving lives must come first, and the people still missing must be found. But when the immediate crisis is over, we should not forget those who survived and are left with little more than the land beneath their feet, if they still have that. Because this flood did not only take lives, homes, bridges and roads. For many farming families, it took the harvest too. And if we allow those farmers to disappear from our food system, the loss will eventually be felt at every dinner table in Nepal.